Cda Diver Missing In Lake Pend Oreille

A Coeur d’Alene diver is missing, and rescuers spent Sunday pushing the depths of Lake Pend Oreille as far as they could to find him.

Sean E. Eich, 31, disappeared Saturday evening when he was scuba diving with a friend near the Green Monarchs area in the southeast part of the lake. The lake’s extreme depth - “60 to 400 to 600 feet,” Bonner County Sheriff’s Cpl. Bob Howard said - made the search difficult for the dive team Saturday.

After searching from 9 a.m. until about 3 p.m., the rescue team stopped. A decision whether or not to resume the search today hadn’t been made Sunday.

Eich and his friend, whom Howard wouldn’t name, went out at about 4 p.m. on Saturday. At about 4:30, the friend came out of the water and headed to shore. He waited. An hour passed. Eich never returned.

The friend dove in and looked for him for hours. A passing boater stopped to help, calling the sheriff’s department by cell phone at about 7 p.m. Marine deputies looked, but found nothing.

Lucretia Eich, the missing man’s wife, said her husband was an experienced diver.

“He hadn’t been diving in about three years. He used to go all the time in San Diego, though,” she said. “They just went out to dive to have fun. They’re both certified, and they were having fun on a day off.”

, DataTimes